The subject matter described herein relates generally to wind turbine blades and, more particularly, to transporting two piece wind turbine blades to a wind farm site and assembling the wind turbine blades at the wind farm site.
Many conventional wind turbine generators include a plurality of single piece or unitary rotor blades that may have a length of about 30 meters (m) to about 47 m or more. Transporting the single piece rotor blades to a wind farm site has become increasingly difficult, particularly over rough terrain or through narrow passageways, as the length of these single piece rotor blades increases.
As a result, two piece rotor blades are being made that are easier to transport than the conventional single piece rotor blades. Further, the two piece rotor blades when assembled may exceed the length of conventional one piece blades.
Once transported to the wind farm site, the two piece rotor blades are assembled and coupled to the rotor hub of the wind turbine generator. One approach for assembling the two piece rotor blades includes coupling a small base or root piece to the wind turbine hub and then coupling a larger tip piece to the root piece. A second approach includes coupling the two pieces together on the ground and then coupling the assembled rotor blades to the rotor hub using a suitable crane or hoisting apparatus.
However, using either of the two approaches described, the two pieces of the rotor blade are difficult to align while assembling the pieces together and coupling the assembled rotor blade to the rotor hub requires multiple crane operations to complete, which may be undesirable.
It is desirable to provide an apparatus and method that facilitates easy transportation of a two piece rotor blade to a wind farm site and/or easy alignment of the two pieces while assembling the rotor blade at the wind farm site.